


Airy Cages Do Not a Free Life Make

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Beforus Speculation, Buckets, F/F, Gen, Gore, rarepair, tentabulge, xeno-bio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:30:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4481048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An addition to 'Run Ahead, Trail Through the Bones Thereafter'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Airy Cages Do Not a Free Life Make

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZeeCatfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeeCatfish/gifts).



“Why did you come to this continent?”

 

“It is different. There were different trolls and different things to do. Why did you never go to my continent?”

 

Sitting in a chair to one side of Damara's medical nest, Feferi did not feel an Empress so much as a particularly stupid wiggler. It was a highly developed sense of duty that drew her down initially and then indignant interest that kept her.

 

Damara was spiteful, proud, and gorgeous in a way that only her warmest hued subjects could be. The breadth of her horns was massive compared to some of the practitioners that made their way carefully around, mindful to stay in the background and not bother her. All of the heat and the beauty of her face was muddled by the deep rust-tinted bruising under her eyes and along the back of her neck. The line of her spine was strange – most of her back-plates so irritated that they were swollen and distorted. It was painful to look at her, but Damara did not accept her audience with any sense of vulnerability.

 

Laying on her side while the med-drones moved nimble appendages along her back and spine, the young woman seemed to have been mightily inconvenienced by the whole of her experiences and was simply waiting to be let free into the world again.

 

What her background investigators had told her was simple: Damara had come from the western continents. There were other brooding caverns there than the main ones, and some of the trolls that lived there had developed splinter dialects and slightly different physical characteristics. It could just be the mix of those contributing to the slurry there – it was a matter to look into at some point in the future.

 

“I would like to live there for some time in the future. Most of my politics are here, but that doesn't mean much does it?”

 

Damara jutted her chin out, smirking. “You are the Empress. Political engines move for you when you tell them to. If they don't do what you ask, crush them under your pointed heel just like they deserve.” Barring her fangs and thrumming, she winked at Feferi.

 

Were it not for Damara's back being worked on surgically, Feferi might act on the challenge in her face. That was a look that said Damara did what she wished, thought what she wished and could not care even a little for the opinions of anyone else. It was infuriating, that level of ambivalence about the core and whole.

 

“You certainly have opinions regarding what I do and don't do.”

 

“As should you.” The young woman growled through something happening out of sight behind her – presumably they touched a nerve or a muscle that she did not like.

 

“Do you want me to have them give you more painkillers?”

 

Damara hissed at her, a scornful and amused in a single sound. “No. Don't need them. I want to feel it.”

 

That perplexed her. “What is fun about being in pain?”

 

Damara rolled her eyes. “Tells you where you are and what you are. Better than being a machine.”

 

That struck a nerve. The whole reason that they were sitting together included machinery.

 

“You have access to the funds that you received as recompense, correct?”

 

Damara folded her arm under her rumble spheres, eyes slitting into accusatory crescents. “They are being processed.”

 

Feferi hissed – breaking her own rule about not showing gratuitous emotion in public. Any of her cues could be used by those with eyes on her. It was a given that she was observed at all times, and it was a given that everything that she did and said was being analyzed for ways to displace or manage her. Smoothing her hands down her knees and out of the hooks that she had made her fingers into, she offered Damara a smile.

 

“I will remedy that situation shortly. You were put through a lot in an appalling manner.”

 

Damara closed her eyes the rest of the way, shrugging one shoulder carefully. “I signed the consent forms. They took that to mean that I agreed to it all.”

 

Understanding what circumstances led to Damara and the other kinetics consenting to be research subjects required some imagination on her part.

 

Theoretically there were social support programs in place for all of them: if they could not work they could go to culling centers and get training and help with adaption. If they were sick or too volatile to be out and about there were stipends that could be accessed. Granted, some of those funds were being adjusted and tapped toward a couple of infrastructure projects that needed extra resources beyond the carpentry drones. However, there still was enough there and a small enough populace accessing what was available that it should not have been an issue.

 

Somehow this girl had slipped through the mesh of a very carefully woven net of security that she had built step by step, through heated argument and Imperial order. The failing pissed her off.

 

“There is a difference between the moderate invasion of your person and the external manipulation of your psionics, versus what was happening in that lab. My engineer looked at the plans or what they wanted to do – there is no room in my Empire for that sort of research. I will not have my trolls treated in that manner.”

 

“No tentacle porn for you? You sure? It could be fun. It would make us -useful-.” Damara leered at her throwing popular rhetoric like knives.

 

“You are useful in and of yourselves as citizens.” That was the end of that train of thought, and a statement of her beliefs on the matter phrased succinctly into a functional sound byte.

 

Nothing about that seemed to impress her young lady. Platitudes were not the right direction to take.

 

“For a few sweeps even. Maybe more that five or six. Imagine the possibilities of a life tragically short but fully realized!” Damara's claws skittered along the foam padding of her nest.

 

“That's casteist carp at the finest.” Feferi leaned in, resting on her elbows and offering her best smile. It worked on most angry trolls and some standoffish ones.

 

“I find that my rusts are the ones that burn brightest. Your heat is what keeps our empire alive.”

 

“Hnnn.” Damara purred, flashing her fore-fangs in an unpleasant smile. “What do you do, my Empress?”

 

“I'm here to make sure that the collective heat of you has somewhere to go. The sea is vast. Fathoms swallow light and all else. I'll catch the whole of you as you sink down.”

 

This was not how she normally spoke to her citizenry. It was not normally how she spoke at all – but Damara was not afraid.

 

She was not afraid of Feferi's station. She was not afraid of pain. She was not afraid of anything at all that Feferi could discern and that made it all the more tempting to bait her.

 

“When my spine is closed, and I have healed I am going to fuck you.”

 

Feferi's bulge pressed along the edge of her sheathe, threatening to make a very uncivilized display indeed.

 

“Work on healing first. Then we'll discuss who is fucking who.”

 

*

 

The documentation from the facilities was flawless. Equius sat at her side, delicately taking notes onto a tablet with reinforced glass, stylus tapping quietly against the surface.

 

“What was it like?”

 

“Mmm?”

 

Glancing over the edge of his tinted observation-panes, her matespirit gave her his full attention.

 

“For the research subjects. What was it like for them?”

 

Feferi pressed along the subtle warmth of Equius' side, not particularly concerned about the sheen of moisture decorating his shoulders. Nothing about his slickness bothered her.

 

“Unpleasant.”

 

“That is not particularly helpful, Equius. In what way? I'm trying to understand so I can do something about it. ”

 

“I cannot give you insight into their suffering, Majesty. I can tell what the goal of the research is. I can show you graphs and I can play video feeds. The research team working on this project was clinical in their approach to documentation. Everything was designed to be reproduced in other settings and eventually improved. To understand their experience you will have to speak with them.”

 

Tapping her claws in a gentle cascade on his forearm, she chewed on the inside of her cheek rather than glubbing them out. It was a leftover tell from her adolescence that had no place in her adult life. Given the temperaments of her various ministers and advisors she would roam her halls with a constantly inflated set of cheeks – and nothing at all would get done.

 

Realizing that she was waiting, he straightened his back into a state of military attentiveness and delivered his report.

 

“They were seeking to make the kinetic energy of psionic trolls a viable power source. Further refinement of the species of biological technology pointed toward intent to supplant the nervous system of a given individual with exterior branches. Nerve impulses could be directed in any number of ways, rather than solely within the system.”

 

“What is the purpose of that?” Feferi could think of a few things and none of them were good.

 

“It seems mostly to have a non-expensive power-source. Also, there is a possibility of behavior modification depending where the bio-wire implanted within the individual.”

 

Feferi stood first, resting a hand on Equius' shoulder. “Finish your report please. Send it to the ethics and compliance board with top priority. If anyone pushes back give me a form to sign.”

 

*

 

The young man who was classified as the second subject was too young to have the sort of money troubles that required the stipend promised for research participation. At least this was Feferi's impression.

 

Mituna Captor possessed a civil record as boring as her chief financial officer's personal life. This meant that much like the tips of said officer's horns which had 'grown' a few inches over the sweeps well past his adult molt – Mituna's record was fake.

 

Still, his school-feeding scores and other realtime data that was uploaded through the civil computing systems said that he was smart enough to be gainfully employed. There were no pings in clinics regarding major illness. Health-care was a universal if slightly ponderous service.

 

Smoothing a hand through the crazy curls of the sleeping boy's hair, she worked on her other cheek. The meeting with Equius had left raw bite-marks that would need a few nights to heal and she could not gnaw any longer without going through far enough to puncture. That had only happened once, but the singular occurrence was enough to cure her of the habit. The slightly paler dimple on the left side of her face reminded her that nothing would ever be as vexing as the Lord Ampora. That level of annoyance was a benchmark for when it was time for her to walk away.

 

It was unethical of her to handle a stranger in this manner. She was his military as well as age-superior and someone who could not tell her no. However, there was a marked lack of a moirail or other quadrants overseeing his treatment. No lusus had come forward concerned for his wellbeing. No friends had made contact with his palmhusk. The young man was well and truly isolated and this bothered her enough that she chose to stay with him, rather than glancing in and leaving upon finding him unconscious. His medical staff seemed to have doubts that he would be waking anytime in the near future, so a little pity might be forgiven.

 

Even if it was not forgiven, it was not observed by anyone other than the occasional med drone floating through and checking statistics and other metrics before drifting away once more.

 

His bare neck was a raw combination of bruised, muddled yellow. Various places where the researchers had inserted their wiring were infected and oozing liquid onto the gauze packed into them. Where the medical clothing was not covering, similar holes stood in contrast to the adolescent gray of his skin. His claws had been filed down flat, the tips of his fingers slightly raw from too much friction or too much force when the shortening had been done.

 

A ventilator sat to one side, rhythmically supporting his respiratory functions. More tubes had been jammed into his long frame against his will, only these were helping, rather than hurting. Feferi wondered if he would draw that distinction.

 

It was his aurals that kept catching her attention like some terrible attraction at the juggalo carnivals. In the video documentation there were instructions about various ways that patients testing the wire could be arranged. He had been one of the examples of a hanging model. His face had been upturned toward a tangled mass of pulsing and shifting tendrils, a couple of fat ones pressed down and into the sides of his neck and into the delicate canals that let him hear. Since watching those videos she had suffered day terrors in the flavor of inquisitive tendrils smothering her. Starting with her aurals and progressing to stuff themselves into her mouth, eyes, and other orifices they would slowly strangle her. This predictably ended with her waking up choking on sopor and with it burning along her gills where they flared in panic. The med team had done their best to clean him up and undo the damage done by burrowing science experiments, but signs lingered.

 

Rubbing her thumb along the bed of one of the young man's twinned horns, she looked out the window and hummed. She did not have much of a voice, to the chagrin of herself and most seadwellers who prided themselves on being sirens. It was one of the few psychic traits that ever showed up in their caste. Even those that could not compel others with their voices generally carried a tune well. She was tone-deaf and inclined to make up for that lack of melodiousness in sheer enthusiasm.

 

While she could not serenade him out of slumber with the sheer force of her will, she had love-songs that she had learned to while sitting under tables at waterfront taverns. The bar attendants had tisked at her and pretended to sweep her away with brooms and other cleaning equipment but it had always been halfhearted. She had been too small to drink but big enough to think she was independent. As long as she stayed out of the way she could listen and learn from the various sailors and merchants that gathered from the docks and the communities along the coast. She had work-songs from the fish-merchants who threw the guts of the day's catch into the harbor behind them, causing a small riot of crabs and other scavengers to congregate. She had the strange hums and whines of her lusus, older than the planet itself and just as mysterious.

 

She shared these with the young science experiment who was sleeping, perhaps forever, and she tried to think of a way to make her Empire better.

 

*

 

The hands on her horns felt like brands. Jerking her chin forward so she would not choke on Damara's thick bulge she counted the seconds before she would have to scratch a swathe of her hip open or punch her in the side. She was a seadweller and she was good at holding her breath. The most expansive lung capacity in the world would not stop her from eventually asphyxiating, so the option to breathe remained necessary. The rust loomed over her like a queen, the tips of her rumble-spheres swollen and delicate, the smirk on her face more vicious than a murderer's. Drips of lubricant and genetic material smeared along Feferi's chin, delving into the valley between her own spheres.

 

Damara was a kinetic troll. No matter how many metal rods she could bend, no matter how thick a wall she could pierce with her bare fists, there were invisible hands that pushed back. There were also invisible tendrils up her nook, shaking her occasionally with a shock or pinch, but otherwise rubbing maddeningly slow swirls around her shameglobes. This also had the effect of making her pant around the twist of muscle in her mouth. Not having to worry about hurting her partner let her relax. Not being able to fight barehanded made her wet.

 

“Told you that I would fuck you.”

 

Feferi bit down carefully, not wanting to do something too rash. Damara slapped her cheek hard enough to make her aurals ring and to make her let go. Pulling out in a liquid curl, she dropped down to sit on the platform, tackling Feferi and pressing her down with the weight of her intention and burning skin.

 

“That was rude. You are rude. I'm going to punish that.”

 

Thrumming with glee, Damara pried her knees apart – Feferi took savage pleasure in making red light sparkle and shimmer around her horns and eyes as she did it – and pressed herself forward. The inexorable push of her bulge felt infuriating and delicious. The pressure stretched her out in a good way, widening in a cadence that made simpler parts of her mind feel content. Hooking her legs around the curve of Damara's waist she growled at her, curving up to press her bulge along the fever-hot slit of her lover for the evening. Damara smirked, pressing her thighs together and making her fight for it.

 

Wrestling and grinding the two of them locked together like eels, skin and muscle flexing and shivering as they fought for control of a small space. Damara panted along her throat, nipping and marking as if she had some right to be territorial and to lay claim. Feferi pressed fingers along her back hard enough to dimple bruises over her shoulders. She nipped in ways that would scar, growling and hooking her teeth in. If this insolent little shit was going to mark her, she would do so in return, an honor she would carry around for the rest of her life.

 

Damara came in her without warning, chirring in a high and triumphant tone before pressing her hips even tighter. The feeling of fullness and warmth suffused her middle, her seedflap reacting violently in response to the very sudden flood of fluid in it's vicinity. It felt like being filled with fire. Hooking her claws into the fleshy plumpness of Damara's rump, she curled herself enough to complete their mating, staring into her face as she spilled herself out. The little shudders and twitches of orgasm left her tired, and being used as a pail was irritating as well as pleasant.

 

“If I were less considerate, sweetfish -” she poked Damara sharply on her sniffglobe, “I would crouch over your smug little face and use you as a bucket. I think you would look nice in my color. I can imagine it now: streaks sliding down from the corners of your mouth and your eyes like tears and spit.”

 

“Try it and you would live to regret it.”

 

Still technically winning by virtue of having the higher ground, Damara studied her face. After all of the mating fervor and spite slipped out of her features, the younger woman seemed tired. Not one to stand on strict quadrants, Feferi reached up to slowly muss her hair and then card her claws through it. Unlike her own locks, Damara's was both fine and bone-straight. It was good to pet through and it made an excellent handle.

 

“You're still tired from the hospital.” Because they had just fucked black, she made it more of a statement than a question. Damara would never accept her pity, nor that of any one else.

 

“Tired from hearing you yowl like a mating meowbeast.” Damara bit her finger, sliding it into her mouth and brushing her tongue slowly along the pad of her fingertip.

 

Feferi felt half inclined to hook her finger down and pierce the slippery flesh under Damara's tongue.

 

“Gonna get a bucket. You gonna behave to share or you need your own?”

 

There was a half filled one in her modus and she would be more than happy to give it to her lover for the evening. That said, she did not feel particularly like wearing the combined slurry of herself, Equius, and Damara simultaneously in a dripping purple tinted mess. Withdrawing her finger from Damara's mouth she briefly lit her hand along the line of her throat and watched her companion slit her eyes in pleasure. That was a weird reaction to being touched in a sensitive place. Equius would do that for her sometimes, but this did not feel like a surrender.

 

"Choose for me. I deserve to have an Empress work for me." 

 

Cheeky little brat, the pre-filled bucket was beginning to seem more appropriate the longer this went on. Instead she levered herself up into a crouch. Pulling a clean recepticle from her modus she hauled Damara upright, watching the young lady ragdoll backward simply to be contrary. The mass of her spheres responded to gravity, the pair of them fleeing sideways along her thoratic struts in a soft jiggle. It was sort of hypnotizing and Feferi paused for a moment to appreciate them. 

 

"C'mon. Up now." 

 

Grudgingly Damara rose, splaying her legs in an overtly obscene gesture. The mixture of their slurry was warm hued and strange looking, a very hot pigment against the cool grays of the lips of her nook. There were little flecks of rust dimpled along Feferi's nethers as well, a constalation of an irritating color produced by an irritating woman.  Pulling her in face to face, Feferi butted their heads together. Pushing her horns forward and grinding them along Damara's she growled softly, the tightness of her gene-bladder urging speed. Damara slipped a hand down between their bodies, grazing her palm over the slit of Feferi's over-sensitive bone-bulge and diving down to rub just inside her nook. It hurt, being too much stimulation, too soon. Something in her thorax twitched and with a great feeling of relief Damara's leavings spilled out of her to hit the cool metal. 

 

Feeling jelly-thighed and comfortable Feferi was ready to lean back and relax. However, her furious little queen crouched waiting for her, thorax slightly distended and the tip of her bulge winking just at the edge of its sheath. Kneading clawtips along the suppleness of Darmara's ass she set the other hand to a similar task, rhythmically stroking along the inner walls of Damara's nook. Her companion trilled, low in her throat and eyes looking far past her and toward the walls. Rocking against her hand long moments passed before her body was willing to let go of what Feferi had left. 

 

Falling back in comfortable pile, Damara flicked her fangs at Feferi and lay down flat. 

 

"You can go now." 

 

So clear a dismissal Feferi had never been given. The medical staff would not appreciate the mess, but she was the Empress and she did as she pleased. If she had added a few days onto Damara's physical therapy, that was simply an unfortunate side effect of royal privilage. Tugging her suit up and zipping herself in, Feferi grinned at her. 

 

"I'm going to visit your continent." 

 

Damara made an inappropriate noise, folding over into her medical nest, angry scars still fresh and shiny along her spine. 

 

She would visit this girl again. Damara was right. She was fit to be bitten by royalty. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Little more to go with Run Ahead, Trail Through the Bones Thereafter. Showing a couple of snippets of what Aliais was talking about.


End file.
